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To the Editor:

Joshua Muravchik criticizes Jimmy Carter’s views about the Middle East, but the fact is that no one has worked harder than Carter to bring the two sides together in the conflict between Israel and the Arabs [“Our Worst Ex-President,” February]. Other Presidents have left office and done nothing to further the prospects for peace besides accepting honoraria for defending the status quo in U.S. policy.

I understand that people are upset about Carter’s use of the word apartheid. It is a loaded term, and not all of its connotations fairly apply to Israel. But Israel and its supporters have a crucial choice to make in the coming years. All else being held equal, it will not be long before demographics make Israel itself a majority-Arab society. How will Israel respond? Can it find enough Jewish immigrants to maintain a Jewish majority? Will it make peace with the Arab world so that its democracy can continue? Will it have to resort to some form of government resembling apartheid?

We all have a stake in Middle East peace. There will be no Jewish or Arab victory, only a common victory or a common defeat. That, rather than petty accusations and character assassinations, ought to be the focus of interested observers. And that is the point of Carter’s book, if not of Mr. Muravchik’s article.

Bill Olds
Raleigh, North Carolina

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To the Editor:

It is probably no exaggeration to say that Jimmy Carter would not have been accused of being “our worst ex-President” had he not discussed the Israel-Palestinian conflict in his recent book Palestine Peace not Apartheid.

What the book basically describes is the effect of Israel’s expansion into the West Bank and Gaza. The tenor of Carter’s study may be regarded as realistic or prejudiced depending on one’s point of view. But it is not surprising that the inhabitants of the disputed territories regard Israel’s expansion as an unwelcome occupation and fight against it.

It must be recognized that many Israelis in the past claimed the Jordan River as Israel’s eastern border while many of the Arab inhabitants looked to the Mediterranean as Palestine’s western border. Carter merely focused on the plight of the people in the occupied area, which explains (if not excuses) their militant activities.

Charles H. Marks
Sharon, Massachusetts

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To the Editor:

Jimmy Carter is on the right side of history, and his book will one day be looked at as a courageous salvo in the war for the truth—the truth that the neoconservatives and other apologists for Israel do not want Americans to hear and understand. Thanks to the overreaction to Carter’s book, it continues to be on the New York Times bestseller list, and more and more Americans are starting to realize that Israel is a rogue nation obsessed with rewriting history at any cost to Americans.

M. Adams
New York City

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To the Editor:

In his extensive critique of Jimmy Carter’s career, Joshua Muravchik makes only passing reference to the Israeli-Egyptian peace accord. That achievement, for all its flaws, is one of the best things that has happened to Israel since its creation. It deserves more than short shrift.

Also, Carter’s response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan may have been late and weak, but the more vigorous response of his successor probably opened the door for the Taliban’s ascent to power.

Donald Feldstein
Teaneck, New Jersey

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To the Editor:

Joshua Muravchik writes that Jimmy Carter “posed for news photos hammering nails into the timbers of homes being built for the needy” by Habitat for Humanity, suggesting that this was a publicity stunt “aimed at reestablishing his credentials as a man of piety.” Although I do not agree with many of Carter’s post-presidency activities, I know from personal experience that Mr. Muravchik is off base in this regard.

I once worked with Habitat for Humanity in helping to build homes for residents of the Dakota Sioux tribe. Carter was there along with many other volunteers from around the country. Far from just “posing” with a hammer, he spent the better part of two days working on the roof of a house, hammering in wood beams and shingles. There were no photographers around to take pictures.

Scott Zacher
Chicago, Illinois

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To the Editor:

Joshua Muravchik notes that Jimmy Carter uncritically cites Yasir Arafat’s claim that Zionists invented the notion that (1) Arabs wanted to throw the Jews into the sea, and (2) that this view was never advocated by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). This shows that Carter is as poor a historian as he is an ex-President.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, the first reference to such an idea came from the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna. In 1948, the New York Times correspondent in Cairo, Dana Adams Schmidt, quoted Banna as saying: “If the Jewish state becomes a fact, [the Arabs] will drive the Jews who live in their midst into the sea.”

The first head of the PLO, Ahmad Shukairy, also discussed the idea in his Dialogues and Secrets with Kings, written in the wake of his ouster following the Arab defeat in the 1967 Six-Day war. He wrote: “Admittedly, I frequently called on the Arabs to liquidate the state of Israel and to throw the Jews into the sea. I said this because I was—and still am—convinced that there is no solution other than the elimination of the state of Israel.” He also noted that he had consulted with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and received his approval for this position. “I do not see why I alone should be blamed,” he declared. Indeed, he alone should not have been blamed.

John C. Zimmerman
University of Nevada
Nevada, Las Vegas

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To the Editor:

I would add to Joshua Muravchik’s catalogue of Jimmy Carter’s peculiar stances and reversals on racial issues a remark he made during the 1976 Democratic primary in Pennsylvania. Aware of a division among Democratic voters in Philadelphia over integration in public housing, Carter stated that he favored “ethnic purity.” He went on to defeat Senator Henry Jackson in the primary, and the rest is tragic history.

My one disagreement with Mr. Muravchik is that I do not view the 1978 Camp David accord between Israel and Egypt as an “achievement.” Egypt continues to prepare its people for war against Israel through constant Judeophobic propaganda in the press and in its mosques. Egypt allows weapons to be smuggled across its borders to terrorist factions in Gaza. Israel’s relationship with Egypt seems more like a cold war than a cold peace.

Elliott A. Green
Jerusalem, Israel

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To the Editor:

Contrary to Joshua Muravchik, I doubt that Jimmy Carter’s attitude toward Jews owes much to “pre-Vatican II” Catholic thinking. I grew up in the South, and unless Carter’s native Plains, Georgia is an exception, a small Southern town does not get much exposure to Catholic thinking, old or new.

The roots probably lie in the same Southern enmity that led to the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, the Jewish manager of a pencil factory in Atlanta. In some quarters of the South, Jews were seen as outsiders with a knack for getting what they wanted at the expense of others. This is essentially what Carter accuses them of today. It is quite likely that his poorly concealed enmity toward Americans in general after the 1980 election became particularly fixated on Jews. Blaming the Jews for personal misfortune is an ancient sickness.

Michael W. Perry

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